


Footnotes of an Adventurer's Life

by lavvyan



Category: Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats - T. S. Eliot, Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-01
Updated: 2011-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-14 07:24:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/146831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lavvyan/pseuds/lavvyan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i> Now that old age has caught me up and rebirth has become a matter of serious contemplation – although I do not flatter myself that my fellow cats might pick me for a journey to the Heaviside Layer over such colourful characters as the Rum Tum Tugger – I wish to recount the story of my first meeting with my very good friend, whom the public still admires as Holmes of Baker Street. </i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Footnotes of an Adventurer's Life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [inamac](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inamac/gifts).



> I moved the timeline a bit, so Holmes and Watson met in 1880 instead of 1881 because otherwise I'd have had to come up with a different Plot DeviceTM and that's just no. Dear Inamac, you (kind of) asked for a very Victorian crossover of ACD Canon with T. S. Eliot's Cats. This is not that story, as there are no hansom cabs, gaslight, Christmas goose or pudding. There are cats though. Happy holidays. :)
> 
> Many, many thanks to Kate for her usual beta-reading magic.

Now that old age has caught me up and rebirth has become a matter of serious contemplation – although I do not flatter myself that my fellow cats might pick me for a journey to the Heaviside Layer over such colourful characters as the Rum Tum Tugger – I wish to recount the story of my first meeting with my very good friend, whom the public still admires as Holmes of Baker Street.

Many stories have been told of our adventures, and many more may never be recounted due to their sensitive or, I admit, somewhat illegal nature. Never though have I revealed how Holmes and I were to become the greatest friends in all of London, and the scourge of more than our fair share of criminals, all things considered, with the crowning achievement of our career being, of course, the capture of the notorious Macavity. What a day that was! I will never forget the heart-stopping moment when Holmes and his foe tumbled over the edge of the Tower Bridge, or the harrowing three hours I three hours I believed my friend to have drowned in the murky waters of the Thames. My own struggle against the dog Moran, a vicious creature who was infamous for hunting those cats unlucky enough to find themselves without a home, pales in my memory against the picture of Holmes, dripping wet and his fine fur caked with mud, triumphantly leading Macavity to his arrest as I looked on, the pain of my own injuries dissolving in the glow of my pride. For I was proud, very much so, to call myself friend to such an extraordinary cat.

But I digress, I fear; forgive me. My dear Holmes always twitted me for starting my tales in the middle, when there was a perfectly acceptable beginning to be told. And yet I linger on those later, dramatic happenings, for the beginning is such a very mundane affair it is barely worth mentioning at all.

Ah, the rumours I have heard tell of our first encounter! One such rumour states that I was one of Holmes's clients, staying with him out of gratitude after he saved me from a truly hideous – and oftentimes highly original, depending on who does the story-telling – case of extortionist blackmail. Another casts me as a veteran of the streets, saving Holmes's life and thus earning myself his life-long loyalty. I imagine both are equally far from the truth, which is that back in July of 1880, when I first met Holmes, I had no notion of what excitements the destinies had in store for me.

Indeed, I had no notion of where I would find my next meal, for during the oppressive days of early June, I had suddenly found myself without so much as a roof over my head, let alone such amenities as punctually-delivered kibbles, or a soft pillow to sleep upon. The young doctor who had kept me company for well-nigh two years had followed the call to arms after his intended had left him for another, and with a heavy heart I set him free. The sands of Afghanistan are hardly the place for a cat from Edinburgh, but then I suppose that neither are the streets of a city like London, that sprawling, monstrous beauty, although I found myself far from helpless. My claws might have been seldom-used, but they served me perfectly well all the same.

Nevertheless, the days and nights I spent on the streets were nothing short of harrowing. I am no shrinking flower that needs to be coddled and kept from harm, but every adventure is best brought to a close in a fine leather armchair in front of a merrily blazing fire, and at the time my only hope was to have either again in my life while I tried to ignore the dirt and stench of the ever-present London fog.

The reader will understand, I expect, that it was in rather a sour mood that I met my old friend Stamford behind the Criterion bar. I was looking for edibles and he, I believe, was looking for a sunny place to rest, and we neither of us quite knew what to make of the unexpected encounter.

"My dear Watson," he finally said, "please forgive me for saying so, but you look appalling."

"I know," I sighed. "It is remarkably difficult to find a new home when one is no longer a kitten. I had some hopes with the owner of a small private hotel near the Strand, but…" I sighed again, disheartened.

Stamford gave me an odd look. The lithe bell on his collar tinkled whenever he moved, giving us both a wince each time. "I say, old fellow. You wouldn't be amenable to sharing your digs, now, would you? I know a tomcat who is looking for a lodger to share his rooms, I believe to distract his housekeeper from trying to pet him. I should warn you," he added, seeing me perk up, "that the tomcat I speak of is rather… peculiar."

"In what way?" I asked, intrigued by the mystery and delighted at my sudden change of luck.

"Withdrawn," Stamford replied after a moment's contemplation. "His manners are somewhat questionable at times, and I don't know how he spends his days when he isn't conducting his experiments behind St. Bart's."

"Well," I said jovially, "I can hardly afford to be very discerning, now, can I?"

"Indeed." He laughed, and we made our way to St. Bartholomew's, catching up on gossip about old friends and acquaintances.

The great hospital is almost a city unto itself. More than once I had accompanied my young doctor to its gates and explored the many hidden areas along its walls and in its courtyard. It was to such a spot that Stamford now led me, once again warning me that I was about to meet a cat who was unusual even by the wavering standards of Jelliclekind.

I didn't mind. In fact, I was looking forward to the encounter with some anticipation. I have always been drawn to the extraordinary, even though I myself am as plain as they come. Though I could not know it at the time, Holmes and I would fit as perfectly as lock and key.

Stamford led me to a secluded corner near the overflowing rubbish bins, and although I cannot possibly do justice to the tableau which faced me, I will try to describe it nonetheless. The first thing I noticed was, of course, Holmes himself. How could one not notice him, with his moonlight-pale fur, broken by the occasional patch of black as dark as the night itself? He was a gaunt creature, tall and indefinably aristocratic in his bearing, with piercing eyes the colour of thunderclouds. Never before, nor ever after, did I ever see eyes of that peculiar shade in a cat, nor encountered one that smelled so strongly of cigarette smoke. The second thing I realised was that he had pulled some of the chemical waste from the rubbish bins and seemed to be conducting arcane experiments on an unfortunate mouse.

"Stamford!" he cried, "I have found a reagent which distinguishes human blood from that of more refined creatures!"

Holmes, I would later learn, had rather low opinions on humans, viewing them as little more than a source of noise, chaos, and the occasional bits of catnip and valerian, frequently complaining about their despicable habit of picking dead cats off the street before Holmes had any opportunity to examine the scene of crime.

"Congratulations," Stamford said dryly. He had been eying the mouse with some interest, but seemed effectively put off by the knowledge that it had served as guinea pig for Holmes's experiments. "May I take the happy occasion to introduce my friend Watson? Watson, this is Holmes, of Baker Street."

I raised my tail politely, but before I could so much as open my mouth for a 'how do you do,' Holmes had already looked me up and down and drawn his – incredible, I thought at the time – conclusions.

"Your human has left for Afghanistan, I perceive," he said coolly. I sputtered, taken aback to such a degree I had to make a conscious effort to keep my ears from flattening to my skull.

"How do you know that?"

"Simple," said he, and proceeded to demonstrate to me, for the very first time, his astonishing powers of deduction. "The fur around your neck shows signs of your having worn a collar, but you have lost some weight of late and your fur, despite your best efforts I am sure, is rather dusty. Recently abandoned to the streets then, but your claws haven't been cut, so your human was likely a man rather than a woman. Not dead, as you aren't mourning, but gone nevertheless. You seem to approve of the absence to some degree, despite its negative impact on your personal comfort, so it is probably for a cause you deem worthwhile. What pressing cause is there for a man to pursue where he cannot take his cat? The war in Afghanistan."

His slim tail twitched as I stared at him.

"Remarkable," I managed, "quite remarkable." In truth, his observations and the conclusions he had drawn from them were more than merely remarkable, they were awe-inspiring. He didn't reply, but his pale eyes narrowed slightly as he gave me a pleased little smile.

"I told Watson here that you are in search of a fellow lodger," Stamford told him.

"Indeed." Holmes kept looking at me, his eyes still smiling minutely. "Well, Watson, what do you say? I could use a roommate with some medical experience."

"How did you," I began, but cut myself off when he started to lick his paw in a clear gesture of boredom. So dismissed, I inquired instead, "Will your human not object to a second cat in the house?"

"Mrs. Hudson needs someone to fuss over," Holmes said with another twitch of his tail. "I myself am rather averse to all the attention, but I've little doubt that you and she would take to each other as fire to dry kindling. I'm told that her cuisine is rather above standard," he remarked with a glance at my belly, where my coat had not yet managed to adhere to the new, thinner lines of my body.

I eyed him critically in return; half a pound less, and I would easily be able to count his ribs. "Have you ever tested it yourself?" I asked. I admit to being slightly nettled by his verbal jab at my weight. I am by no means fat, but next to him, who is thin enough to hide behind a candlestick, I appeared comfortably rounded even then, when I myself was thin as a lath and dusty as a Street Arab.

"Infrequently," he returned with some amusement.

"Any vices I should know of then, apart from a propensity for starvation?" I asked him. "One should know such things about prospective roommates, should one not?"

"By all means," he granted. "I get in the dumps sometimes and do not speak for days. Do not take it personally, for it is no judgement of your character. And I sometimes play the violin at night, which can get rather loud, I'm afraid."

"That doesn't deter me," I said, privately wondering how he might go about playing such a delicate instrument without scratching the wood. "As long as you forgive me the occasional rise of temper."

"Done," he purred.

I had time, later, to wonder why Stamford seemed to laugh at my quick agreement to follow Holmes to his rooms in 221b Upper Baker Street. I also had time, later, to wonder if Holmes's peculiar nature would still seem so appealing to me if I had to deal with it each day. Back then, though, on a dry, sunny afternoon, behind the rubbish bins of St. Bart's, an excitement filled me as if I was about to embark on the grandest adventure of all.

I was right, of course. But that, as they say, is already down in history.


End file.
